A man has been jailed for slashing the throat of a man he suspected was having an affair with his wife.

Jim Robertson attacked Andrew "Tiny" Jackson with a craft knife after catching him alone with his wife at midnight.

Mr Jackson, who is 6ft 4in and weighs 22st, told Hove Crown Court he thought he was going to die as blood pumped from a severed artery in his neck.

The jury heard that Mr Jackson confessed to a paramedic as he was being taken to hospital he had taken the sex performance boosting drug Viagra that night.

Mr Jackson was scarred for life in the attack which happened after Robertson found him with his estranged wife Jane at the family home in Harold Drive, Eastbourne.

Jailing Robertson for three-and-a-half years yesterday, Judge Austin Issard-Davies said: "What you did was to take a knife and slash at the face of the man you supposed to be your wife's lover.

"He will bear physically and mentally the scars of that for life."

Earlier, the court heard Robertson stormed in after following Jackson and his wife from a karaoke night at the Kingfisher pub, Langney, on January 8.

He told the jury he found them at the bottom of the stairs where Mr Jackson appeared to be fumbling with his trousers.

Robertson, 39, said: "He was behind my wife and had his hands in his groin area and he looked dishevelled.

"It looked to me as if he was doing something up or putting something away. He did not have his trousers around his ankles but it looked very suspicious."

Jane Robertson, a mother-of-three, said she had asked Mr Jackson in for coffee after sharing a cab home with him and a friend they had dropped off first.

Julian Dale, defending, asked Mrs Robertson if it could be implied more than coffee was on offer if a woman invited a man back to her house for coffee at midnight.

Mrs Robertson said: "My children were in the house at the time and I certainly would not do anything like that."

She described how her husband had burst in within seconds of them arriving home.

She said he walked quickly towards Mr Jackson in the lounge and lunged at him with his arm raised. As Mr Jackson fell, Robertson walked out of the house.

He was later charged with wounding Mr Jackson with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

Robertson, who worked at a rope-making factory in Hailsham, denied taking a knife into the house. He claimed Mr Jackson, a double-glazing fitter, had something silver in his hand as the two men grappled briefly in the lounge.

Robertson, of Welbeck Close, Eastbourne, said he did not see what it was but assumed it was a knife.

He claimed he pushed Mr Jackson's hands away from him and the knife must have caught his throat as he stumbled backwards.

Robertson said: "I had proven my point, I had caught them in the act. For me that was good enough and I didn't need to do anything else."

Earlier, the court heard how Robertson pretended to go to work as usual but took the night off so he could spy on his wife.

He told the jury of the tell-tale signs which led him to suspect she might be having an affair.

He had noticed she was not wearing her wedding ring and she had started to take baths earlier than usual before she went out.

Michael Shay, prosecuting, said the Robertsons had separated for a year.

Robertson said during that time he had a relationship with another woman and claimed his wife had a number of one night stands.

They got back together again but in December agreed he would move out on January 10, two days before the attack took place.